Tuesday, April 17th, 2012
What are your customers doing when your marketing or sales messages show up in their lives? Sitting there waiting, minds clear, all prepared to devote their full attention to what you have to say?
Of course not!
Any time your customers encounter your marketing or sales messages, you can be sure that they already have a deep, rich, personal narrative happening in their minds. Your challenge: Become part of that story without interrupting it. Have a look at today’s newsletter, Don’t Knock Her Story Out Of Her Hands.
Posted in Brand Harmony, Conversation, Customer Encounters, Ditch the Pitch, Marketing | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012
Today’s newsletter article, How to Turn a Sales Conversation into a Shared Story is the third in a series outlining Ditch the Pitch Habits.
This article focuses on one of the most important principles of ditching the pitch: If your customer doesn’t want to hear your sales pitch, how do you get the customer to understand your story, and find it compelling?
These Ditch the Pitch Habits can help you whether you are selling widgets, selling ideas, raising money, convincing bosses, renting office space … etc. … anytime you need to persuade someone, you’re better off ditching the pitch!
Posted in Ditch the Pitch | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011
Why do people with all of the facts often fail to communicate?
My father, Shelby Yastrow, coined a wonderful metaphor to describe this. Check out today’s newsletter, “You know all the words, but not the music.”
Posted in Conversation, Wisdom from everyday life | No Comments »
Monday, September 14th, 2009
Conversation. Genuine Dialogue.
Relationship-building encounters can’t happen without it.
Make this a week of awareness about conversation. During every interaction – with customers, vendors, partners, colleagues, bosses, direct reports, etc. – keep “The Conversationometer” alive in your mind:
- Are you and the other person engaged, at each moment, in true, genuine dialogue, or is one (or both) of you practicing “monologue disguised as dialogue?”
- How fluid is the conversation? What can you do to make it more fluid?
- How well are both of you listening?
- How relevant are your responses to each other? Are each of your answers and comments based on what came before in the conversation, or on a “pre-approved agenda” you wanted to force into the conversation?
Monologue does not move relationships forward. Conversation is critical.
Make this a week of conversation.
Posted in Conversation | 3 Comments »
Thursday, June 11th, 2009
Last night began a 17-day odyssey, with travels taking me to speaking events in Seattle, New Jersey, Mauritius (look on your globe a few inches to the right of Madagascar), San Francisco (two events), and then up to Wisconsin with my band to play three times over a weekend. I’m expecting 64 hours in the air over the next two and half weeks, in addition to about 16 hours in airports and 12 hours getting to and from airports. I’ll make it home for a few odd nights along the way, staying just long enough for my geriatric dog, Puck, to get confused.
I’m excited about the work on these trips, but a bit concerned about dealing with all of the travel. While on the flight this last evening, I was thinking that the best way to deal with mega-travel like this is to treat it like yoga. Relax, be present, don’t be anxious about things happening in other places. Focus on the moment I’m in right now. Avoid thinking, “When are we gonna get there?” and don’t let any travel hassles shake my peace of mind. The four-hour flight from Chicago to Seattle was enjoyable; I settled into my seat, got some work done, read a bit, chilled out.
Well, this peaceful mentality was tested 10 minutes after arriving in baggage claim in Seattle, when it became clear that my suitcase (full of today’s presentation materials) didn’t make it on the flight. But just as my blood started to boil, I caught myself. Yes, I think United Airlines is inept for making me wait in baggage claim, and then in a baggage service line, when they’ve known that my bag was lost for the last three hours. Why not send a message to me while I’m on the flight? Why not give me $100 to buy some stuff instead of saying “Government regulations give the airlines 24 hours to find a bag before requiring remuneration?” Why not apologize?
But I didn’t get upset. I stayed calm. Actually, I wasn’t calm for the first 30 seconds after the United agent confirmed that my bag was still in Chicago, but I caught myself. I remembered that I have tons of travel in the next few weeks, and I don’t want to let these hassles interrupt my peace of mind. This is not my normal reaction; I’m embarrassed to think about how many times I’ve lost my cool in airports. But, hey, much of life is about practice and progress.
So why does this matter, beyond me keeping my personal stress levels down?
We Relationships are the great business differentiators in our new economy. It’s very difficult to create lasting product advantages, and even more difficult to create lasting service advantages these days, because, if you are successful, your competitors are constantly trying to copy what you do and steal your customers. But where your customers may see your products and services as replaceable with those from competitors, a personal We Relationship with you is unique, because it can’t be copied by the competition.
One of the biggest hurdles to creating relationship-building encounters is how the chaos in our lives makes it difficult to be fully present as we engage with our customers. Here’s a common scenario: In a workshop, I’ll ask attendees if they can tell when someone they’re speaking with on the phone is simultaneously checking email or surfing the web. Invariably, people say they can discern this behavior, because it is obvious the other person is distracted. Next, I ask them if they will commit that, for one week, they will not look at their computer screens during phone calls. Just as invariably, people laugh and say, “No way, I know I can’t do it. I’m so busy, I can’t resist looking at emails while I’m on the phone so I can get two things done at once.”
Now, take the same scenario, and add to it distractions from the BlackBerry, project deadlines, problems with other customers, personal issues, etc. If we let these distractions get to us, we will not be able to engage our customers fully, and we will end up creating relationship-eroding transactions instead of relationship-building encounters.
Think about that. As the distractions and stresses of modern business life increase, we are less able to have relationship-building encounters, at a time when relationships are the most valuable product we create.
As I wrote in this newsletter, We Are Not Multi-Taskers, “At any given moment, at places all over the planet, millions of interactions between buyers and sellers are devolving into mere transactions, missing the chance to be relationship-building encounters, because the people in the interaction are not fully present.” (For more on the idea of being present during customer interactions, see Chapter 2 in We or my free ebook, Encounters.)
So, if I let United Airlines’ ineptitude take over my brain, how will I be able to engage the audience to whom I will be speaking a few hours from now? How will I be able to be fully present on the important call I need to have with a client before my speech?
As the Buddhists say, “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” You will be distracted. People, and your BlackBerry, will interrupt you. Thoughts about one customer will enter your mind as you speak with another. People you work with will piss you off, and your blood will start to boil. United will lose your bag, too.
But remember, relationship-building encounters are the most important thing you produce every day. The more you can focus on the customer with whom you are speaking, right now, and ignore the distractions, the more successful you will be.
Posted in Customer Encounters | 8 Comments »
Monday, June 30th, 2008
I’ve seen every Shakespeare production produced by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater since 1990. Over the years, as they choose plays from the repertory, I’ve had the treat of seeing new interpretations of plays I’ve attended at Chicago Shakespeare before. Last night, I saw the third version of Comedy of Errors they’ve done. It was a very creative, interesting production, setting the play on a 1940 British movie set, where a team is making a film of Comedy of Errors while the Nazis are dropping bombs. It really worked; click to read a Chicago Tribune review. (I think the review sells the play short)
Comedy of Errors, like Twelfth Night, starts out with a shipwreck that separates siblings and leads to cases of mistaken identity. In Comedy of Errors, two sets of identical twins are separated as infants. Shakespeare sets the stage for farce by giving identical brothers the same names: Antipholus of Ephesus grows up with his servant Dromio, and Antipholus of Syracuse grows up with his servant Dromio. When, as adults, the pair from Ephesus end up in Syracuse, chaos ensues. People think they are having conversations with the Antipholus they know or the Dromio they know, but they are not speaking with the person they think they are. Wife confuses husband, merchant confuses customer, master confuses servant, lover confuses beloved, etc.
The heart of the comedy in Comedy of Errors is that people often think they are having successful communication with another person, when, in fact, the other person is understanding the conversation in a completely different way. As the audience, we can see both sides of the misunderstanding, but each of the characters in the conversation can only hear the part of the conversation they are prepared to hear. As the audience we laugh. But what happens when we return to daily life?
Work life, especially the part that includes interactions with customers, is filled with misinterpreted conversations. We live a daily comedy of errors where sales claims and elevator pitches are misconstrued, where technical explanations are misunderstood, and where nods of understanding are really signals of disinterest. And, as in Comedy of Errors, when we advertise we really never know who we’re talking to. We may think we know, but we really don’t. And we certainly don’t know how we’ll they’ve understood us.
Communication isn’t about saying what you want to say. It’s about being understood. As Harold Bloom wrote, Shakespeare invents characters that are more human than real people. Even in a farce like Comedy of Errors, first performed 416 years ago, Shakespeare’s multiple Antipholuses and Dromios can teach us lessons about communicating in our modern work life. When you converse with a customer, don’t just assume you are understood, make sure you are. And, believe it or not, make sure you really understand who it is you are communicating with. It may be a different character.
Posted in Conversation | 5 Comments »
Monday, February 18th, 2008
The concept of the “elevator pitch” has become popular in recent years. An elevator pitch is what you would say if you were lucky enough to find yourself in an elevator for 30 seconds with the CEO of a prospective client company.
The biggest problem with an elevator pitch is that you may actually tell it to someone.
Why do I say this?
The Next 30 Seconds
I am much less interested in the 30 seconds you are in an elevator with a CEO than I am interested in the next 30 seconds, after you say goodbye in the building’s lobby. What happens during this subsequent 30 seconds? Is the CEO totally mesmerized by his encounter with you, unable to stop thinking about this incredible person he just met, or does he grab his cell phone and make a call, as the memory of you quickly fades away?
Monologue vs. Dialogue
If you want to create a memorable encounter with someone, don’t expect a 30-second monologue to do the trick, no matter how well it is crafted. You will have much better success if you focus, instead, on creating a 30-second dialogue.
The worst thing we all learned about marketing that it is mostly based on one-way communication … “getting the word out,” “telling your story,” “making your pitch,” “cutting through the clutter,” and, my personal (un)favorite, “capturing eyeballs.”
Humans don’t connect with monologues the way they connect with dialogues in which they are engaged. If you want to communicate with someone, don’t talk at them. Talk with them.
Posted in Customer Encounters, We relationships | 6 Comments »
Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
Have a look at my Super Bowl rant on tompeters.com:
We live in an age of smart consumers who are not easily sold. A rule for this marketplace: The more people you try to talk to at one time, the less effectively you communicate with each individual person.
Posted in Brute Force Branding | 2 Comments »
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